The present invention relates to a process for the production of semiconductor elements by dividing up to a large-area, metallized semiconductor wafer into a plurality of small-area semiconductor wafers, and the application of a layer of soldering metal.
A process of this type has been disclosed, for example, for the production of high voltage rectifiers, where large-area, metallized semiconductor wafers already provided with one or several pn-junctions are coated with a layer of soldering metal and are soldered to one another to form a stack. This stack is then cut up into individual small-area semiconductor elements by means of a plurality of parallel cuts and a plurality of parallel second cuts running at right angles to the former. It is possible to use this process for the production of high voltage rectifiers, but it is not suitable for the production of small-area semiconductor elements consisting of one single semiconductor wafer, as it constitutes too expensive a method of production for this purpose.
It is also already known to provide a large-area semiconductor wafer with a plurality of small-area electrodes and then to divide up this semiconductor wafer between the electrodes by means of a very fine sand blast emerging from a nozzle. In particular, in the case of small components, this process necessitates a high degree of accuracy and requires a relatively large amount of time unless a set of multiple nozzles is used for the simultaneous production of parallel cuts.